Emergencies

EmergenciesPOLIOPublic Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)Polio this week as of 15 November 2017 [GPEI]
:: Underlining their commitment to a polio-free world for all future generations, Italy has provided €4.5 million to deliver polio vaccines in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
[In Afghanistan, the contribution will be used to support and train vaccinators and social mobilizers in generating demand for vaccination, the delivery of vaccines and monitoring whether vaccination activities are well-implemented. In Pakistan, the contribution will support vaccination campaigns in the most challenging areas of the country, as well as the immunization of communities that are at particularly high risk due to their mobility, through tactics such as giving vaccine established transit points. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have matched Italy’s contribution, doubling its impact to €9 million…]

Summary of newly-reported viruses this week: …Afghanistan: One new wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case, reported in Kandahar province. One new WPV1 positive environmental sample, collected from Kandahar province.
… Pakistan: Six new WPV1 positive environmental samples, one collected from Punjab province, two collected from Sindh province, and three collected from Balochistan province.

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Syria cVDPV2 outbreak situation report 22: 14 November 2017Situation update 14 November 2017
14 November 2017 [Editor’s text bolding]
:: No new cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) were reported this week. The total number of cVDPV2 cases remains 63. All confirmed cases to date have had onset of paralysis before 25 August 2017.

:: Inactivated polio vaccine activities aimed at reaching children aged 2–23 months are ongoing. IPV will be offered alongside bOPV as part of the subnational immunization days in 6 districts of Damascus and 200 hotels in the city, 3 areas of Rural Damascus, 2 districts of Homs and 1 district of Aleppo with large internally displaced populations from Deir Ez-Zor.

:: Almost 3000 children under 5 have received all routine immunization antigens in newly accessible areas of Deir Ez-Zor city between 7 and 10 November in opportunistic vaccination activities.

:: A joint mission between the World Health Organization and the local health authority to visit newly accessible areas of Aleppo was conducted this week. The mission also met with the Aleppo University Hospital and Aleppo Pediatric Association to advocate for acute flaccid paralysis surveillance and to support ongoing immunization activities to reach IDPs from infected areas.

:: The advisory group on mOPV2 vaccine provision met this week to review the revised risk assessment for Syria cVDPV2 outbreak and discuss contingency plans for outbreak response. The group endorsed, in principle, the proposal to preposition approximately 1 million doses mOPV2 in Damascus (pending receipt of formal vaccine request from the Ministry of Health) to enable rapid response in the event of any ongoing outbreak response activities

Polio is one of the top priorities of the largest foundation in the world, and in their 2017 annual letter, Bill and Melinda Gates said they think it is possible that polio could be eliminated this year. At the Reaching the Last Mile summit in Abu Dhabi this week, panelists talked about the near eradication of both polio and Guinea worm disease, and what lessons smallpox — the only infectious disease to be wiped off the face of the planet — might offer. But as the Gates Foundation funds this effort to get to zero case of polio, its program staff wants to make sure to improve upon one of the failures of the smallpox eradication effort by documenting the lessons learned.

Dr. Olakunle Alonge, assistant professor at JHSPH, will lead this new grant, $3.7 million over five years, resulting from a request for proposals called “Applying the Lessons Learned from Polio Eradication to Global Health.” Working with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Alonge and a team of partners from seven countries — Nigeria, India, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, and Indonesia — will develop courses and clinics that capture the best practices of the polio eradication effort. The goal, said Alonge, is to capture the lessons learned and prevent this knowledge from being lost so that systems and strategies can be repurposed, not recreated….

::::::WHO Grade 2 Emergencies [to 18 November 2017]Myanmar
:: Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Bulletin – Volume No 5: 12 November 2017…4.1 Second round of Oral Cholera Vaccination Campaign
…From 4-9 November 2017, the second round of OCV was conducted targeting 182,317 FDMNs between 1 and 5 years. As of 9 November 2017, a total of 199,472 persons were reported to have been vaccinated, representing 109% (199,472/182,317) of the target population (table 2). Oral cholera vaccines represent a tool to fight cholera and are licensed as two-dose regimens with 2-4 weeks between doses. Evidence from previous studies suggests that a single dose of oral cholera vaccine might provide substantial direct protection against cholera….

Niger
:: Rift Valley fever in Niger
November 2016 — Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes and blood feeding flies that usually affects animals (commonly cattle and sheep) but can also involve humans. In humans the disease ranges from a mild flu-like illness to severe haemorrhagic fever that can be lethal. When livestock are infected the disease can cause significant economic losses due to high mortality rate in young animals and waves of abortions in pregnant females

DRC
:: Democratic Republic of the Congo Overview (November 2017) 16 Nov 2017
The humanitarian situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has deteriorated dramatically over the past year. The crisis has deepened and spread, affecting people in areas previously considered stable and stretching the coping mechanisms of people in areas already impacted. A surge in violent conflict and intercommunal tensions has forced more than 1.7 million people to flee their homes in 2017 – an average of more than 5,500 people per day. Today, the total number of internally displaced people in the DRC has reached 4.1 million, which is the highest number of any country on the African continent. Insecurity has had a devastating impact on people’s ability to access food, and 7.7 million people across the DRC are facing severe food insecurity – a 30 per cent increase from the same time last year. The situation is further complicated by political uncertainty and economic downturn.